Projectkin Special Livestream: All About That Place 2026
In the US, siding with England in the Revolution makes you at best a loser and at worst a traitor. But in Canada, being a United Empire Loyalist is a badge of honor. I started my genealogical search at age 14 in my grandfather’s hometown, Shelburne, Nova Scotia, founded by Loyalists in 1783. All his ancestors stepped off ships to start new lives. We visited our relatives’ incredible house, built by a Loyalist seafaring couple. Shelburne has a rich historical tourism tradition I learn from and hope to add to. I currently work on bringing that house’s story to life.
A Legacy of Leadership: American Women Win the Vote
Paula F. Casey of Memphis, Tennessee is a dynamic speaker on voting rights, particularly the 72-year struggle for women to be included in the U.S. Constitution with the 19th Amendment’s ratification. Since 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, she speaks on the nonviolent effort for American women to win the right to vote and efforts to create “a more perfect union.” She frames the woman suffrage movement’s history as central to democracy.
Piecing Together Enslaved Lives in Port Royal, Jamaica
Genealogists and descendant communities often hit brick walls tracing people enslaved in the British Caribbean before full emancipation in 1838. Linking names in the triennial slave registers and Anglican parish records provides a critical bridge for advancing research forward from the slavery era. In this talk, a few examples reveal what cross-referencing these and other key sources can recover, and where the archive remains silent. Even when individual stories remain beyond reach, such research deepens our understanding of late slavery and the lives lived within it.
Florida’s Forgotten: the 1928 Hurricane
September 17, 1928, a Category 4 hurricane drove Okeechobee Lake in Florida over its bank and unleashed a 30-foot wall of water, destroying towns and claiming thousands of lives.
Join us to learn about one of America’s deadliest and most overlooked disasters. We will uncover the historic issues and strategies that genealogists used to identify the many victims who were buried without identification, leaving descendants with mysteries that remain unsolved nearly a century later.
The River Remembers: Stories from a Mudlarking Archive
At low tide, the Thames reveals objects lost for decades or centuries: clay pipes,
coins, buttons, pottery and fragments of everyday life. But every find raises a
question—who held it, used it or dropped it? Join me on the foreshore as I trace
these clues back to the people and places they once belonged to, and discover
how my Mudlarking Archive turns river-worn objects into vivid, connected
stories of London’s past.
All Work and No Play?
Have you diligently noted down the occupation of your ancestors in records without really taking much notice of what was written? Records, particularly in the early 20th century will sometime state not only an occupation, but also an employer. From the late 19th through to the 20th century Bedfordshire was home to several large companies and we will explore what kind of information we hold on them and their employees.
Fenian London: an explosion in Clerkenwell
On Friday 13 December 1867, Clerkenwell became the centre of a Fenian gunpowder plot aiming to break two members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood out of the House of Detention This talk will the explore the events that led to an explosion resulting in the deaths of 12 people, injuries to over 100, and the destruction of tenement houses on Corporation Lane (now Corporation Row).
The Importance of being Harriet
When a respected educator found herself at the centre of a legal confrontation, the tidy narrative of her career became far more complicated. This talk reveals how one courtroom episode reshapes our understanding of a seemingly conventional Victorian life.
Social distinctions maintained, even after death
The land alongside the Thames at Tilbury was a tidal saltmarsh, When it was reclaimed, the parishes of Chadwell and West Tilbury were extended to the river, The parish boundary was disputed leading to occasional violence. When Tilbury Fort was rebuilt, a new boundary was established with straight lines between features of the Fort. This left the officers quarters in West Tilbury and the other ranks in Chadwell. An officer who died was buried in West Tilbury; an ordinary soldier in Chadwell. Social distinctions were maintained, even after death
John Codd: A Forgotten Man
In the aftermath of the 1839 Chartist’s march on Newport, it suited the authorities to forget the names of the men who died at the Westgate Hotel in Newport, but its time that their stories were told.
This is the story of one of the forgotten Newport Martyrs- John Codd from his birth in Nolton, Pembrokeshire, his working life as a blacksmith in the dockyard at Pater (Pembroke Dock) to his death at the hands of the army in Newport.